The demand for compact camera systems delivering high performance is increasing with the growing use of imaging systems in a wide variety of applications. Such applications are found in areas such as consumer electronics, machine vision, automotive, and medical diagnostics. The performance requirements depend on the particular application. In some applications, such as surveillance and automotive safety, a large field of view is required. Other applications, such as portable consumer devices, may require high quality imaging together with very compact form factor and low cost.
Driven by this demand, camera manufacturers are developing wafer-level cameras using manufacturing technology from the semiconductor industry. Wafer-level cameras are cameras in which the individual parts are manufactured at the wafer-level. Lens wafers and image sensor wafers are diced to singulate individual lenses and individual image sensors, which are subsequently bonded to produce individual wafer-level cameras. Wafer-level technology facilitates the manufacture of compact camera systems at low cost.